Tuesday, October 16, 2007

My Letter to the Rome News Tribune

In keeping with an earlier post [Woodsman Spare That Tree ] I'll be writing more about things going on in my local community.On Sunday,Oct. 7th of this year, a group of about 50 Pro-Life demonstrators gathered on one of the main thoroughfares of our city to hold a silent protest against abortion.That story can be found here.In Friday,Oct 12 the Rome News Tribune published a "guest column" from a local resident criticizing the demonstrators. Unfortunately, that column isn't available online so I'm unable to provide a link or paste it here and it's much too long for me to type out. Of course, people with access to the paper can read it. I found most of the writer's criticisms to be beside the point.On Sunday, the 14th I sent a letter to the Rome News Tribune .I held nothing back in this letter. As of this writing I've heard nothing from the Rome News Tribune as to whether or not my letter will be published.I've decided to post a copy of the letter below and I'll be posting more about this as the days go by.

While reading Nathan Adler’s most recent guest column in the Rome-News Tribune, a light went off inside my head. Now, I understand why people who vote for and support Democratic candidates do so. I’ve come to the conclusion that these individuals are incapable of having a rational thought and for them, logic is an alien concept.In all these years, I’ve yet to read a column or letter from Mr. Adler that wasn’t filled with emotional ramblings, absurdities and non sequiturs.In his column, Mr. Adler was critical of a group of anti-abortion demonstrators because they had failed to hold up signs protesting such unrelated issues as the war in Iraq, minimum wage and the state of our educational system. The validity of the pro-life movement should be determined by analyzing the points made by it’s supporters and not in it’s relation to subjects that are logically beside the point.I had to ask myself : Should a group of anti-war demonstrators assemble on Broad Street will Mr. Adler write a letter criticizing them for not carrying signs relating to healthcare in this country? I doubt it.Just as there were no signs among the anti-abortion demonstrators that read “ End the war in Iraq now “ there were none that read “Let’s bomb Iraq “. It is highly presumptuous of him to conclude that he knows how each individual demonstrator feels about the current war. His implication is that being anti-abortion equals pro-war. That’s quite a leap.He also laments that there were no signs reading “Educate our children, don’t regiment them.”. Does he think that pro-lifers forget about the children once they’re born? He need look no further than to the Christian schools in Rome and Floyd County to see that being pro-life and pro-quality education is not contradictory.The issue of abortion boils down to whether or not we recognize the unborn as being fully human and deserving of all the rights and protection we give to all others in our society. Yet, by bringing up the issues of minimum wage and credit card debt, Mr. Adler wants to compare abortion to the question of whether or not the government should be interfering in our capitalistic, free market society.Mr. Adler wrote that abortion is a “useless issue”.The newspaper points out that Mr. Adler is a retired school teacher. For the good of the school children in our community, I’m thankful that he is retired.